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pub package

A Flutter package that makes navigation and routing easy.

Learn more at vrouter.dev

Here are a few things that this package will make easy:

  • Automated web url handling
  • Nesting routes
  • Transition
  • Advanced url naming
  • Reacting to route changing
  • Customizable pop events
  • And much more…

Index

Getting started

VRouter

VRouter is a widget which handles the navigation, it acts as a MaterialApp but also takes a routes arguments.

VRouter(
 debugShowCheckedModeBanner: false, // VRouter acts as a MaterialApp
 routes: [...], // Put your VRouteElements here
)

VRouteElements

VRouteElements are the building blocs of your routes.

Note that they are not widgets but the way you use them is very similar to widgets.

VWidget

VWidget maps a path to a widget:

VWidget(path: '/login', widget: LoginScreen())

VGuard

VGuard allows you to take actions when the route is accessed/leaved:

VGuard(
 beforeEnter: (vRedirector) async => , // Triggered when a route in stackedRoutes is first displayed
 beforeUpdate: (vRedirector) async => , // Triggered when a route in stackedRoutes is displayed but changes
 beforeLeave: (vRedirector, _) async => , // Triggered when VGuard is not part of a new route
 stackedRoutes: [...],
);

VRouteRedirector

VRouteRedirector redirects from a route to another:

VRouteRedirector(path: '/old/home', redirectTo: '/home')

VNester

VNester are used when you need to nested widgets instead of stacking them:

VNester(
 path: '/home',
 widgetBuilder: (child) => MyScaffold(body: child), // child will take the value of the widget in nestedRoutes
 nestedRoutes: [
   VWidget(path: 'profile', widget: ProfileScreen()), // path '/home/profile'
   VWidget(path: 'settings', widget: SettingsScreen()), // path '/home/settings'
 ],
)

VPopHandler

VPopHandler helps you control pop events:

VPopHandler(
 onPop: (vRedirector) async =>, // Called when this VRouteElement is popped
 onSystemPop: (vRedirector) async =>, // Called when this VRouteElement is popped by android back button
 stackedRoutes: [...],
)

Navigation

Navigating is easy, just access VRouter with context.vRouter and navigate:

context.vRouter.to('/home'); // Push the url '/home'

context.vRouter.toSegments(['home', 'settings']); // Push the url '/home/settings'

Useful notions

Composition

VRouteElements are designed like widgets: compose them to create the route you need.

Compose VRouteElements

To compose VRouteElements, use the stackedRoutes attribute (or the nestedRoutes attribute for VNester):

// Composing a VGuard and a VWidget
VGuard(
 beforeEnter: (vRedirector) async => !isLoggedIn ? vRedirector.to('/login') : null,
 stackedRoutes: [
   VWidget(path: '/home', widget: HomeScreen()),
 ],
)

Create custom VRouteElements

You can even create your own VRouteElement, as you extend VWidget. You just need to extends VRouteElementBuilder:

class HomeRoute extends VRouteElementBuilder {
 static String home = '/home';

 @override
 List<VRouteElement> buildRoutes() {
   return [
     VGuard(
       // LoginRoute.login = '/login' for example
       beforeEnter: (vRedirector) async => !isLoggedIn ? vRedirector.to(LoginRoute.login) : null,
       stackedRoutes: [
         VWidget(path: home, widget: HomeScreen()),
       ],
     ),
   ];
 }
}

and then use this VRouteElement as any other:

VRouter(
 routes: [
   HomeRoute(),
   ...
 ],
)

This can be used to:

  • Separate you different routes in different VRouteElement
  • Create reusable VRouteElement
  • Use static String to organise your paths

Note: you often want to use a shared VNester in different VRouteElementBuilders, for this specific use case, see vrouter.dev/Custom VRouteElement And Scaling

Path

Relative path

Paths can be relative: if you don’t start your path with /. If you use null, the path will be the one of the parent:

VNester(
 path: '/home',
 widgetBuilder: (child) => MyScaffold(body: child),
 nestedRoutes: [
   VWidget(path: null, widget: HomeScreen()), // Matches '/home'
   VWidget(path: 'settings', widget: SettingsScreen()), // Matches '/home/settings'
 ]
)

Path parameters

Paths can have path parameters, just use “:” in front of the path parameter’s name:

VWidget(path: '/user/:id', widget: UserScreen())

And access it in your widgets using:

context.vRouter.pathParameters['id'];

Wildcards

Wildcards are noted * and there are of one of two types:

  • Trailing wildcards (a path ending with *) will match everything
  • an in-path wildcard (a wildcard between slashes) will match one word

// Redirects any path to '/unknown'
VRouteRedirector(path: '*', redirectTo: '/unknown')

Path parameters regexp

Path parameters can use regex, just put the regex in parentheses. This is often used in VRedirector to redirect any unknown route:

// The path parameter name is “bookId” and it uses the regex “\d+” to match only digits
VWidget(path: r':bookId(\d+)', widget: BookScreen())

Note that such a VRedirector should be used as your last route otherwise it will always be matched.

Aliases

Use aliases for multiple paths:

// Matches '/settings' and '/other'
VWidget(path: '/settings', aliases: ['/other'], widget: SettingsScreen())

VRedirector

You often want to redirect or stop the current redirection in VGuard and VPopHandler. For that purpose, you get a VRedirector:

VGuard(
 beforeEnter: (vRedirector) async => !isLoggedIn ? vRedirector.to('/login') : null,
 stackedRoutes: [...],
)

VRouterData

VRouter contains data (such as the path or path parameters) that you might want to access in your widget tree. There are 2 ways of doing do:

// Use the context
context.vRouter

// Use the builder constructor of some VWidget or VNester
VWidget.builder(
  path: '/:id', 
  builder: (context, state) => Book(id: state.pathParameters['id'] as int),
)

Go Beyond

We have just scratched the surface of what VRouter can do. Here are a few other things which you might like.

Initial url

Maybe you want to redirect people to a certain part of your app when they first launch it, then use initialUrl:

VRouter(
 initialUrl: '/home',
 routes: [...],
)

Logs

By default, VRouter shows logs of every navigation events.

You can remove these logs using VLogs.none:

VRouter(
  logs: VLogs.none,
  routes: [...],
);

Named route

You might have to access a deeply nested VRouteElement and don’t want to have to write the full url. Just give a name to this VRouteElement:

VWidget(path: 'something', widget: SomeWidget(), name: 'deep')

And navigate using toNamed:

context.vRouter.toNamed('deep');

Transitions

You can either specify a default transition in VRouter, or a custom one in VWidget or VNester

VRouter(
 // Default transition
 buildTransition: (animation1, _, child) => FadeTransition(opacity: animation1, child: child),
 routes: [
   // The custom ScaleTransition will play for '/user'
   VWidget(
     path: '/user',
     widget: UsersScreen(),
     buildTransition: (animation1, _, child) => ScaleTransition(scale: animation1, child: child),
   )
   // The default FadeTransition will play for '/settings'
   VWidget(path: '/settings', widget: SettingsScreen()),
 ],
)

Much more

There is so much more that this package can do, check out the example
or have a look at the vrouter.dev website for more documentation and more examples.

Also don’t hesitate to join us on discord !

GitHub

https://github.com/lulupointu/vrouter